Why Women Have Sex (43 page)

In the same study, the researchers found that women who had been having regular intercourse without condoms felt more depressed the longer it had been since they stopped having sex. However, this was not the case with the condom-using women who had stopped having regular intercourse. The researchers suggested this might mean that the women who had not been using condoms went through some sort of “drug withdrawal” when they stopped having regular vaginal contact with semen. In chapter 2 we discussed the many evolutionary explanations for why orgasms may have evolved in women, one being that they feel good so they “reward” women for having sex. Physiologist Roy Levin has suggested that the mood-enhancing effects of semen could
have evolved as a way to make sex rewarding for women even when they do not have orgasms.

In addition to showing that semen can enhance a woman’s mood, these provocative findings have far-reaching implications for women’s sexuality. As we saw earlier, low testosterone levels can account for low sex drive in some women, and testosterone is absorbed through the vagina even more quickly than through the skin. So, to the extent that semen-borne testosterone can seep into a woman’s bloodstream, it could potentially have a beneficial effect on her sexual desire. Using duplex ultrasonography, researchers have shown that prostaglandin E
₁
, one of the magic substances found in semen, significantly increased the amount of blood flow to women’s genitals. And in a later study, it was found that women with sexual arousal dysfunction who applied a cream that contained prostaglandin E
₁
to the vulvar area prior to intercourse became significantly more sexually aroused. Women who applied a cream with a placebo instead of prostaglandin E
₁
did not show the same beneficial effects. So to the extent that semen-borne prostaglandin E
₁
can enter the woman’s bloodstream, it could have a beneficial impact on her sexual arousal.

Further studies obviously need to be conducted before physicians start prescribing vials of semen as the new generation of antidepressant medication! However, these findings do offer a physiological explanation for why many women in our study reported having sex to “get rid of depression” and to “feel better.”

Sometimes, I just crave the weight of another person on top of me.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 20

Loneliness is a common cause of depression. People differ widely in the amount of contact they want or need from other people. At one end of the spectrum are the social butterflies who thrive from social interactions, and at the other end are the social recluses who rarely wish to leave their homes. But for most people, a certain amount of contact with others is desired, or even needed, to have a sense of well-being and
connectedness. A lack of social contact and, at a deeper level, a lack of intimacy lead to loneliness over time. Feeling lonely and lacking intimacy are problems that are especially apparent for heterosexual women in their elderly years. Because women more often marry men who are older and because men have a shorter life expectancy than women, women generally outlive their husbands. Because elderly single women outnumber elderly men, it is harder for them to find a mate.

In our study, women of all ages and sexual orientations described situations in which they had sex in an attempt to combat loneliness:

If I am lonely, I am more likely to be interested in talking to someone and possibly having sex with them. I really think that romantic and sexual involvement all boils down to loneliness. The only reason to engage in intimate behavior with someone else is to feel a human connection and physical pleasure. Physical pleasure can be found alone, so the biggest reason for sex is the human connection. The need for human connection results from loneliness.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 27

Feelings of loneliness can be so debilitating that they lead some women to make unwise relationship choices simply out of the fear of being alone:

I had sex in my last relationship so I would not feel so damned lonely and unlovable. It was a stupid thing because it ended up worsening the feelings for me. I had only seen the guy for a month or so. We were doing some heavy petting after a pretty serious discussion on where we were heading in our relations. He said he wanted to “fuck” and I obliged so someone would be next to me for a little while, so I’d feel like my body was more than a blob of gelatinous fat. I regret it now because we didn’t really know each other very well and were not really sure where we were going. . . . Such is life.

—heterosexual woman, age 31

For the majority of my relationship with my ex-husband I thought sex would help keep him with me. Sex was all about him and keeping him happy. I was too young to know it, but he was not able to
satisfy me because he lacked any sexual skills. He also lacked any love and compassion and genuine interest in me. He was/is a wholly selfish person. I received no gratification in our sexual encounters. It was always about him and trying to keep him happy so I would not have to be alone.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 39

One woman in our study described a situation in which the fear of being without an intimate partner led her to desperate and unhealthy measures:

I was always a “good girl” and never slept around much. One day I discovered I’d been given herpes from a guy I was no longer dating. I was devastated. It was in the seventies, when that was pretty much the worst thing a girl could get. I thought it meant that I could never have children, and I was certain that it meant no man would want me. So, I started having sex indiscriminately to try to find a husband. I purposely had sex when I had an outbreak because I wanted to give them herpes so that we would be in the same boat. It wasn’t that I was trying to seek random revenge for what happened to me, it was that I was terrified of being alone. I thought that if someone else had the same disease as I did, we’d be connected, and he’d never leave me because of it.

—heterosexual woman, age 49

Sex, as we know, sometimes leads to a deep sense of emotional connectedness. But this occurs almost always when it is accompanied by feelings of love or affection, caring and tenderness, a shared history, or, at the very least, the hope for a shared future. This is not to say that a “one-night stand” cannot be immensely pleasurable and exciting for some women. What it does mean is that when the primary motive for having sex is to cure feelings of loneliness, casual sex is often disappointing:

I was feeling lonely at the time, [and I] knew that this guy would have sex with me . . . so we did. It really only allowed me to feel loved at the time . . . as soon as he left I felt lonely all over again.

—heterosexual woman, age 24

As one woman in our study eloquently described, needing to have sex is a part of needing intimacy and connection, but sex alone is not the cure:

I had a one-night stand a month or so after breaking off a three-year relationship. It was a complex combination of freedom, new ability to be adventurous, loneliness, sadness at intimacy lost, and a hope that there was something better out there. It didn’t work in terms of making the loneliness go away, though. The other people weren’t there for the same reasons, and afterwards I felt shame and worries that I didn’t want to deal with. The sex wasn’t particularly good because I didn’t know them well and there was a lot of alcohol involved, and it served to teach me that sex wouldn’t fix loneliness, it was a symptom of intimacy but it couldn’t create it.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 29

But not all women in our study who had sex to avoid loneliness described it as a negative experience. Some women said that it helped them get through the night, kept them from engaging in self-destructive behaviors, or boosted their self-confidence.

My boyfriend and I were on a diet and felt we were not getting enough exercise so we decided to have a little fun and burn a few extra calories a few times a day by having sex. It was fun and really helped us to feel the burn.

—predominantly heterosexual woman, age 25

Depending on which report you read, a sexual session can burn anywhere from 100 to 250 calories. Clearly the range is related to the level of athleticism during sex. Ballet maneuvers and handsprings during sex will burn more calories than will the “lie back and wait for the royal treatment to arrive” technique. Also in the equation is whether the event is a noontime “quickie” or an extended night of erotic pleasure.
According to a survey of 152 heterosexual Canadian couples, the average lovemaking session for women lasts 18.3 minutes. This consists of 11.3 minutes of foreplay and 7 minutes of intercourse. (Interestingly, the male halves of these same couples reported that foreplay lasted 13.4 minutes—considerably longer than what their female counterparts claimed.)

Women’s ideal durations of foreplay and intercourse, as opposed to what they’re actually having, were considerably longer—19 minutes of foreplay and 14 minutes of intercourse. According to a survey of over 1,400 women aged eighteen to fifty-nine years, American women have sex about 6.3 times per month. The average is somewhat higher among twenty-to thirty-year-olds (7.5 times per month) and somewhat lower among fifty-to sixty-year-olds (four times per month).

Given that a pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories, the average American woman burns 3.78 pounds of fat a year having sex. So if American women all suddenly stopped having sex, in ten years they would all be thirty-eight pounds heavier. Viewed another way, if women had sex four times a week instead of twice, or managed to extend the session from 18.3 minutes to 36.6 minutes per romp, women would lose an extra four pounds of fat a year. Or they could remain the same weight and consume an extra seventeen chocolate sundaes, twenty-three sugar-glazed doughnuts, and fourteen champagne truffles a year—definitely food for thought.

“Sexercise” not only burns calories, like other forms of cardiovascular exercise, but supplies a host of other health benefits. It can increase metabolic rate, stretch muscles and increase flexibility, increase energy, help tip the good/bad cholesterol balance in the good direction, increase blood circulation to all parts of the body including the brain, and maybe even lower the risk of having a heart attack and extend life expectancy. One study that questioned men and women repeatedly over a twenty-five-year period found that sex was, indeed, a significant predictor of longevity. But there were also interesting gender differences.
For men, frequency of sex was related to longevity—the more sex they had, the longer they lived. For women, it was the quality of sex that mattered—the more they had enjoyed intercourse in the past, the longer they lived. A recent study of nearly 2,500 elderly Taiwanese men and women found that, over fourteen years, both men and women who had sex at least once per month lived longer than men and women who had sex less than once a month or not at all. In fact, women aged sixty-five and older who had sex more than once a week were almost twice as likely to still be alive fourteen years later than women who had sex only infrequently or not at all. One study showed that nuns, who presumably abstain from sex completely, have a 20 percent greater risk for breast cancer compared to the general U.S. population of women. However, women who do not experience pregnancy have the same increased risk of breast cancer. Thus, it is impossible to know whether the nuns were more likely to have an increased risk for breast cancer because they abstained from sex or because they had never experienced pregnancy.

Scientists do not know for certain why sex and longevity are related. There are so many lifestyle factors in addition to sex that could affect how long you live (for example, diet, exercise, genetics, stress) that it is virtually impossible to parse the pieces. The link between sex and longevity, however, likely has at least something to do with the fact that regular sexual activity increases levels of testosterone and estrogen. Both of these hormones have been described as protective factors against heart disease. Premenopausal women are less than half as likely to suffer from coronary heart disease as are men. But once a woman goes through menopause and her ovaries radically slow down the production of her sex hormones (estrogen, progesterone, testosterone), her risk for coronary heart disease catches up to that of men. Even younger women who have had both of their ovaries removed due to cancer are at a greater risk for developing coronary heart disease. In contrast, there is an abundance of research showing that postmenopausal women who take estrogen supplements have a lower risk of coronary heart disease. Some women, of course, choose not to take estrogen replacement therapy because they are afraid that the synthetic
form of estrogen could increase their risk of breast cancer. The jury is still out on the true effect of hormone replacement therapy on a woman’s risk of breast cancer. Because sex causes the body to produce its own natural estrogen (as opposed to the “polyester” version), regular sex could potentially help decrease the risk of heart disease without increasing the risk of breast cancer.